Pages

Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Preservation and Proposition

Our mission is to document the pivotal Second Amendment events that occurred in Frontier Mercersburg, and its environs, and to heighten awareness of the importance of these events in the founding of our Nation.

We are dedicated to the preservation of the place where the Second Amendment was "born" and to the proposition that the Second Amendment (the "right to bear arms") is the keystone of our Liberty and the Republic.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Mayor Mike McGinn plans to unveil a program Monday to encourage Seattle businesses to go "gun free" by not allowing customers to carry firearms inside their establishments.

About a dozen businesses have already signed up for a "Gun Free Zone" decal, including Cafe Racer, where a customer shot and killed four others last year. Other participants include Neumos, Oddfellows Cafe & Bar, Sweatbox Yoga and Cupcake Royale, with more expected in the coming days.

"This is something businesses can do to be on the front lines of preventing gun violence," said Ralph Fascitelli, board president of Washington CeaseFire, a gun-control group that approached McGinn three months ago with the idea and has since been recruiting participants. "It's a good incremental step."
Fascitelli said the program won't stop a determined killer such as the Cafe Racer shooter. But he said that taking guns out of the equation could prevent some arguments from ending in tragedy.

Gun-rights activist Alan Gott lieb dismissed that line of thinking, noting how few people get fatally shot in crimes of passion in Seattle businesses.

"Let's be realistic about this," said Gottlieb, the founder of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation.

"If these businesses want to turn off their customer base, I guess they can do it," he added. "It's a free society."

A McGinn spokesman would not comment until after the Monday news conference, which Washington CeaseFire will host.

A news release that will be sent Monday quotes the mayor as saying that "the police department regularly enforces trespass laws when a visitor to a business violates that business' rules. We will continue to do so, and I thank these businesses for standing up for the safety of their customers."

The program is based on laws allowing businesses to set conditions of entry such as requiring shirts and shoes. In Washington, local governments are prohibited from directly setting their own gun laws.

The program is a unilateral executive action by the mayor's office, in coordination with Washington CeaseFire. The Seattle City Council has not yet been briefed.

Bruce Harrell, the chairman of the council's Committee on Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology, said McGinn's time would be better spent trying to change the state law that bars local governments from setting gun laws.

Harrell, a candidate for mayor earlier this year, said the Gun Free Zone program "is not going to hurt things. I just don't see how it's going to make a huge difference."

But Cafe Racer owner Kurt Geissel said it will do something.

"It sends a message that it's not cool to just walk around with a gun all the time because bad things happen," he said. "It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's really, really bad."

Spokesmen for the Association of Washington Business and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce could not be reached for comment.

The new program represents the latest chapter in a long-running debate over gun-free zones, particularly in businesses.

In Washington, guns are prohibited near some schools and other areas -- policies that gun-rights supporters see as doing more harm than good because, they say, a good guy with a gun is the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun.

In 2009, departing Mayor Greg Nickels issued an executive order banning guns at public parks and community centers -- a move that became a campaign issue when McGinn accused rival Joe Mallahan of "siding with the NRA" by questioning the costs of defending the ban in court.

The ban was overturned a few months later because of the state law that prohibits local governments from pre-empting state gun laws.

McGinn is now running for re-election against state Sen. Ed Murray, who did not return a message seeking comment.

National gun-control groups have for years sought more gun-free zones. In 2010, several groups presented about 30,000 signatures to Starbucks corporate headquarters in the hopes of getting the coffee chain to prohibit guns. Starbucks has declined, citing open-carry laws. Washington is among open-carry states.

Earlier this month, open-carry activists held a "Starbucks Appreciation Day" to support the company and the right to legally carry guns openly. The day caused some controversy, however, as a Starbucks store in Newtown, Conn., closed five hours early out of respect for the victims of a December 2012 shooting at a nearby school, store officials said.

The announcement of the new program, set for 10 a.m. at Oddfellows, comes after a week that focused on violence in Seattle.

Last Monday, a 31-year-old man shot a Metro Transit bus driver before being killed by police. On Thursday, McGinn announced the allocation of an additional $400,000 to extend summer police patrols through the end of the year.

On Monday, organizers and participants will discuss the new program and show off the decal, which states: "No Guns Allowed Inside. We are proud participants in Washington CeaseFire and City of Seattle's GUN FREE ZONE."

Fascitelli said he hopes the event will spur more businesses to join the program. Organizers also plan to reach out to other cities, he said.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Save the Birthplace of Our Gun Rights - Donate Here

It All Started Here . . .

Frontier Mercersburg in 1765 was the "birthplace" of the right we now refer to as "the Second Amendment", or, "the right to bear arms". It was here that individuals for the first time, some would say divinely, embraced the link between "Life and Liberty". . . and struck the first blow for Freedom.

Historically the right to bear arms goes back even before our founding as a nation to the Glorious Revolution of 1689 when William III agreed to the English Bill of Rights. If one can look at revolution like a volcanic eruption in nature, you understand that often from the destruction come the seeds of new human values and beliefs. In this case the independence of the human spirit, the right to know God for oneself, and to trust your conscience was hard won in this revolution of the human soul.

One crucible begets the necessity for another and on the frontier in America the right to defend ones religious beliefs was becoming the right to participate in the decisions of government that impact my "self". Freedom of the soul was becoming freedom of the heart and mind. Smith's Rebellion began as an act they justified under the rubric of defending oneself because government had failed in its obligation to protect Life, Liberty and Property. This was the first assertion of this principle aimed directly at British Military Authority as well as the incompetent government of John Penn - anywhere in the colonies.

In the end, Smith's Rebellion was the first armed resistance against British Military Rule leading up to the American Revolution. It was the first American triumph over the best military force in the world. It was the first time upon defending oneself that Americans had proclaimed we can rule ourselves.

It would be ten years before the battles at Lexington and Concord.

...Let Them Take Arms

The "Right to Bear Arms" . . .or 2nd Amendment is one of the most discussed and contentious of all the amendments of the Bill of Rights. It is, in fact, the only amendment that contains not only the seeds but the actual instruments of the revolution itself. Further, it gives real affirmation to Thomas Jefferson's quote . . .

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It is for this reason, if no other, that the Government and its functionaries vociferously assail and obfuscate the text of this simple assertion. More, it is for this reason, and in the face of the perennial onslaught that its defense and affirmation is essential to the survival of the republic.

Frontier Mercersburg & The Justice William Smith House

The frontier town of Mercersburg, PA. in the 1760's, although typical of many settlements along the Appalachian Mountains played a pivotal role in the creation of what was to become the "Bill of Rights".

Frontiersmen like James Smith and the Black Boys, many of whom were inhabitants of the Mercersburg environs, were early participants in a series of conflicts with the British government that established principles the eventually lead to the inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the Bill of Rights.

Much of the focus, centers on the domicile (and likely place of business) of Justice William Smith.